Page 53 of A Very Bumpy Christmas
ORION: 10/10 situational awareness in those eyes.
BOONE: Mountain man approved.
LINCOLN: Files under: mission accomplished.
RANGER: Don’t forget to sleep. (Kidding. You won’t.)
I save the thread like evidence. In a different life, I would scroll it for strength. In this one, I set the phone down and hold the real thing.
It’s been a few days since the blizzard hospital symphony. We’re home. The wedge is under the door because I am who I am. The tree still glows on its timer like it’s proud of us. Amelia and Margaret have colonized the kitchen with casseroles and hydration plans. The apartment smells like lemon and laundry and a new tiny human.
I don’t want to leave for even a minute. I also need to move a piece on the board that’s been itching my palm since the storm broke.
“Duke and Gunner want a quick sitrep,” I tell Mel, hating the way the words feel. “Fifteen minutes at the coffee shop, then I sprint back. Your mom and Amelia are here, so you’ve got triple coverage.”
She searches my face like she can spot the other thing I’m carrying. Of course she can. “Go,” she says gently. “Ask, don’t assume.”
“Let him help,” I answer, because the fridge tells the truth.
I brief the aunt and grandmother in the living room like it’s an op: extra diapers here, burp cloths there, baby down after eating whether he knows it or not, me five blocks away with my phone on. Margaret kisses my cheek with a fierceness that keeps surprising me. Amelia fake-salutes and whispers, “Bring back pastries or don’t come back at all.”
On the stairs I stop, and listen. Snowmelt drips in the alley. A plow grumbles three streets over. The city is shaking itself awake.
The coffee shop sits at the corner where our routes overlap by design. I choose the back table with sightlines to both entrance and street, flanked by a mirror that can’t keep secrets. Duke slides into the chair that gives him the door, and Gunner queues for caffeine and returns with a tray that could feed a hockey team.
“Congratulations, Dad,” Duke says, deadpan except for the eyes.
“Thank you,” I say, and the word lands like a real thing I get to be.
We get to work. Hale—the third shadow—has been busier than Mercer in the days since the storm. He switched rentals again, burned two phones, and did a loop that touched the Kipling and then a co-working space three floors above a “reputation management” shop with a website that’s seventy percent adjectives and zero percent nouns.
“Red herring with a résumé,” Gunner says, tapping photos. “He’s not after Mel. He’s after whatever Mercer thinks he has onusor our clients.”
“Mercer’s funding?” I ask.
Duke slides a printout across the table. Breadcrumbs: an LLC that pays Mercer’s retainer, paid by a Delaware shell that receives wire transfers from a media investment shop with a portfolio that includes gossip sites and two “investigative” podcasts with more drama than rigor. Not Wade’s people. Not cartel. A different breed of mess.
“So they wanted a dossier,” I say, putting it together out loud. “The story of the storm without the storm. Our protocols, our holes, Melanie’s following—something to sell to ad buyers and anxious competitors. Hale was hired to poach the poacher.”
“Working theory,” Duke nods. “He’s a thief of thieves. Red herring—not harmless, but not the strike we prepped for.”
I stare at the paper and feel a different kind of anger—the petty, corrosive kind that feeds on eyeballs. I can fight a man who swings. I don’t like fighting a rumor that sells.
“So we do what we always do,” I say. “We starve it. We take away his narrative. We make sure there’s nothing worth stealing, and if there is, it points back at the buyer.”
Gunner grins. “That’s the spirit.”
Duke leans in. “And, Lucas—step two is you deciding where you live.”
I don’t let it be a dramatic pause. I’ve been carrying this decision since I felt my son’s fist close around my finger. “Saint Pierce,” I say. “I’m not leaving Mel and Ev. I’ll stand up a permanent posthere. You can rotate me back to Denver when the snow melts and I say it’s okay.”
Duke's mouth does that quiet smile. “Dean will make it happen.”
I call Dean before my courage can think it has to arrive. He picks up like he was about to call me anyway.
“Congratulations again,” he says. “How’s the little man?”
“Strategic,” I say. “Name’s Everett.”
